


a fine arrangement

by curiositykilled



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Established Relationship, Fluff, Introspection, M/M, Massage, Morning Cuddles, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-14 19:50:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18058940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curiositykilled/pseuds/curiositykilled
Summary: It's not a perfect life, but it suits him just as well.





	a fine arrangement

**Author's Note:**

> technically in the same canon as [ofsaw](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11951478/chapters/27021402) but doesn't have to be read that way

                  The body has always made sense to Altaïr. It intrigued him when he was young, but like a puzzle, each piece fit into place. As a novice, he would retreat to his corner of the great library to look through the medical texts and memorize the meticulously-drawn diagrams. Other novices had laughed, made lewd comments about the other uses of those drawings and an isolated spot. Malik had mocked him for trying to impress Al Mualim – right before sitting down to continue his own studies.

                  Despite it all, there was something soothing about the knowledge. The body made sense – its rhythms and limits, its mechanics and flow. It wasn’t like conversation or trying to make friends among his peers. There, the logic and pathways were all so muddled and perplexing. A compliment could send someone into a rage as quickly as an insult could be followed by a kiss. There weren’t joints with their ranges or muscles with their origins. What systems could be interpreted from the daily behaviors of thirty-odd eleven-year-olds surpassed Altaïr’s comprehension. The body, though – that he could understand.

                  Some of it, as Malik had shrewdly noted, was for the application’s sake. He wanted, needed, to live up to Al Mualim’s expectations. Their teacher spoke of such lofty goals, such noble ideas, and he devoted so much of his time to Altaïr. Altaïr needed to repay him in some way for his kindness, and the only way he could was to strive to embody that vision. He lived for the rare reward of Al Mualim’s heavy hand on his thin shoulder and a mild, “Well done.”

                  Some of it, though, was simply for the sake of knowing. As a child, he would use himself as a living diagram – here is where the arteries run, that is the muscle that flexes the hand. He has always delighted in understanding, in learning. In another lifetime, one where he grew up without Al Mualim’s guiding hand, he would be a scholar.  

                  There were other benefits to the knowledge, though, that he wouldn’t discover for some time.

                  Malik wakes slowly beneath his fingertips, which is, in and of itself, a kind of gift. Rare is the assassin who can sleep while another touches them; it's been trained out of them since before they could toddle after their white-robed elders. To be trusted so consummately by Malik, after everything, is enough to leave Altaïr humbled anew every time.

                  On certain days, it weighs in his chest like a corpse, heavy and pendulous. What would happen if he fell into the thrall of the Apple? What if Malik did not wake when he needed to? What if his trust led him, like Eurydice, to death? He could not live with himself, he knows. He would surrender himself to the noose or to deprivation’s slow attrition.

                  He tells himself that it would never happen. Malik has keener instincts than that. Altaïr could never be so wholly lost. A thousand worlds away, he tells himself, he would still know the rhythm of Malik's heart.

                  It works, sometimes.

                  On days when he's only morose or when it's an idle thought, fleeting and easily dismissed. He believes himself then.

                  On others, though, he cannot. When he wakes with phantom blood dripping hot and scarlet down his hands, with his throat hoarse from screaming for mother, father, Adha, Al Mualim – it does not work then. He is no more than a man, and not even a great one at that. The power of the Apple makes his will seem as supple as a grass blade.

                  Malik seems to have an uncanny perception of those days. Altaïr has never breathed a word of those fears aloud, and yet, invariably, Malik will pull Altaïr to his chest and hold him like a grounding weight. Some days, he'll sing a child's lullaby, his voice low and husky with sleep. He could never be mistaken for a songbird, but his voice is the sweetest sound Altaïr has ever known.

                  Now, Malik exhales, his ribs sinking under Altaïr’s hand.

                  “Good morning,” he says.

                  “Good morning, my heart,” Altaïr says.

                  He leans forward to press a kiss to the top notch in Malik’s spine, just below where he’d sink a blade in a target. He settles back and presses his thumb a little more firmly into the knot below Malik’s shoulder blade.

                  “You’re tense.”

                  Malik groans a little and buries his face back into the pillow. It makes his shoulders hitch up, the long muscles of his back bunching. Altaïr’s hand flattens out to rest over them.

                  “M’back would prefer a thousand Templars to hunching over my quill for another hour,” he mumbles into the pillow.

                  Altaïr smiles, small, and returns to his ministrations. His arm will fall asleep if he stays propped up in this position much longer, but he’s loath to move just yet. There’s a drowsy contentment to their sleep-warm bed and the morning light turning the corners of their room a buttery gold. He presses a little more, coaxing the muscles of Malik's back into a softer state. Malik sighs as one knot gives way.

                  "So this is what you learned in the brothel," he remarks.

                  "I learned many things in the brothel," Altaïr replies loftily, continuing his work.

                  Malik turns his head just enough to grin at Altaïr.

                  "And I thank them for the quality of their instruction," he says.

                  That is enough for Altaïr to pause and reach over to ruffle Malik's hair. He recoils instinctively but not before his dark strands are in disarray. He laughs as he lays back down, and Altaïr returns to the massage with a little smile.

                  The brothel in question was the location of one of Altaïr’s first independent missions. His mark had been a frequent customer, and he’d found it useful to enlist the help of the courtesans. He had gathered the information necessary for his mission, but there were some additional lessons he didn’t include in his report to Al Mualim.

                  Those lessons had come to be of greater benefit than he could have anticipated. He found little pleasure in the acts himself, but he had a vested interest in bringing Malik pleasure. Malik had struggled with that at the start of their gentle descent into domesticity. They had had more than a few conversations sitting among half-discarded robes, working out the line between guilt and desire.

                  Altaïr follows the great muscle of Malik’s neck and shoulder up to where it disappears along the spine. The tissue here nearly crackles under his touch, and Malik seems to melt against the bed as Altaïr presses the heel of his palm back toward his shoulder. There’s a popping sensation deep beneath the bones, and Malik groans.

                  “Were you not Grandmaster, you would have a flourishing career in massage,” he says.

                  “I have time yet to pursue it,” Altaïr answers. “I’ll leave you the robes.”

                  Malik snorts.

                  “And ensure yourself a frequent customer in the process,” he retorts.

                  Altaïr hums and leans down to kiss Malik’s shoulder.

                  “It seems a fine arrangement to me.”

                  Shifting to allow for better reach, Altaïr walks his hand along Malik’s spine. His thumb and palm press into the meat of the cord-like muscles there that flex and bend his back. His fingertips brush against Malik’s shoulder blades, his ribs, the softness of his side.

                  Malik’s body is nearly familiar as his own by now. They have been in orbit since the start of their lives, swinging far or near but always together. He has seen Malik grow from a snarling boy to a sage leader. They have tended each other’s wounds at every age. He could draw Malik from memory, he thinks, each facet and scar. He would build him from the center, heart first.

Altaïr finally cedes defeat to his right arm and sinks down to press close to Malik’s side. His hand continues to run feather-light across Malik’s back.

                  Malik gives a slow, sleepy blink and reaches his hand up between them to cradle Altaïr’s jaw. His palm fits as if it was shaped for this purpose, his thumb resting warm against Altaïr’s cheek.

                  “Ya hayati,” he murmurs.

                  Altaïr pulls him close till they fit together as if dovetailed, a near-perfect union. Malik sighs a warm breath against his shoulder. Noises of Masyaf waking rise from the grounds below them, but here in their room, tranquility is suspended a little longer.

                  “You’re doing well,” Malik says after a while. “As Grandmaster.”

                  Altaïr hums, ambivalent. He trusts Malik’s judgment, but it is a different thing to believe it himself. Change is always hard, and moreso when the departure from the past was such a violent break. Too often, still, Altaïr feels as if the Order limps along where it used to run. He worries that they will never again be as strong as they were before the fracture.

                  “I fear I am not enough,” he admits.

                  He can feel Malik exhale both in the air that hushes warm against his skin and in the gentle collapse of his ribs.

                  “I am trying but – ”

                  But it took him his entire life to even suspect Al Mualim of deceit. But he has never been a leader. But he spends most his time reaching out for advice or support from others.

                  “Altaïr.”

                  Malik pushes himself up so that Altaïr is forced to meet his gaze. His brow has furrowed, a deep crease forming in the center.

                  “You are not him,” he says. “You are not who he wanted you to be.”

                  Another time, only a few years before, the words would have had Altaïr’s hackles rising. Now, they are a reassurance.

                  “You are so much more than what he could imagine,” Malik continues. “Your doubt is a sign of your strength.”

                  He is defenseless against Malik’s conviction. If he cannot believe the words themselves, he can believe in Malik having keener sight than him. Malik has never shied from giving his honest report; he would not now.

                  Altaïr reaches up to brush the backs of his fingers against Malik’s cheek. The stubble there prickles against his knuckles.

                  “I could not do this without you,” he says.

                  “Of course,” Malik answers, a teasing lilt in his voice. “I am your better half, after all.”

                  That gets no objection from Altaïr except to pull Malik down onto him, which isn’t really an objection at all. Malik is a heavy, grounding weight against him, comforting like the soil over a tree’s roots. Lying there together, Altaïr knows he would never run away without Malik. How could he? It would be like trying to run without his right leg.

                  When he says as much, in plainer words, Malik breathes out a laugh and props himself up just enough to meet Altaïr’s eyes. He brushes his thumb tip over the scar cutting through Altaïr’s lips and soothes it with a light kiss.

                  “You would not run at all,” he says. “Once, perhaps, but no longer. You are Masyaf’s backbone, and you would sooner shed that your blades than shed that responsibility.”

                  Altaïr wrinkles his nose, mostly because he cannot find a proper rebuttal. It’s true, of course – but he would leave them both for a common cause. He leans up to kiss Malik back.

                  “Very well,” he concedes, “Then, if I am not to become a masseuse, I should start my day as grandmaster.”

                  Malik lays back down, like a child pretending to sleep when their parents check in, and mumbles a complaint into Altaïr’s shoulder. Altaïr laughs and wraps his arms around him. He closes his eyes against the morning sun and breathes deep.

                  Their life is not perfect. There are troubles and fears and ghosts at their every step, and he can only guess at what problems have arisen while they slept. But here, now, he knows Malik is right. He would not run away. It is a good life - the right fit. He smiles, now, as it begins again.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to make myself write again and I missed the boys sooo morning fluff it is
> 
>  _Ya hayati_ \- "my life," meaning "my love" (according to the blog posts/forum threads I read but pls correct me if that's wrong)


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